al-Badaya Saaba - Hard Start
by Mini Goat
Summary: THTJB - So Jack's got a girlfriend... kind of. It's really hard to get any action around this place though.


**_AN:_**_ Jack just wants some time alone with Sam now that she's come to terms with her feelings but every time he tries to make out with her they get interrupted. 'Girl From the North Country' is a lovely song by Bob Dylan later covered rather recently by Eddie Vedder, Sting, and others. _

**al-Badaya Saaba - Hard Start**

"Sam, you left the shed unlocked." Jack growled at her when she came to pay her rent.

"When did I do that?"

"Yesterday."

"I was in class all day yesterday."

"You do know it's summer Carter?"

"Best time to pick up easy classes." Sam said, grinning.

Jack shook his head and laughed. "All right, so I need to yell at Siler."

"Probably. I took my car to class."

"Wanna come sit in my lap and talk about the first thing that comes up?" He patted his leg hopefully.

Sam giggled. "It's rent day Jack."

"Free show?"

"No," she said laughing.

Jack got up and locked the door then leaned against it, smiling smugly. "C'mere"

She tilted her head and grinned at him but she moved into his arms "You think you're so slick." She teased.

"Worked. didn't it?" He said softly before claiming her mouth in a searing kiss that left her breathless.

"Hey Jack, I know you're in there. I can see you leaning against the door." Came Daniel's muffled voice accompanied by banging from the other side.

"Fer cryin out loud." Jack groused, and then went back to kissing Sam deeply.

"Jaaaaccckkkk… I'm not the only one out here." Daniel said in a sing-song voice.

"You should let them in." Sam said but then stuck her tongue in his ear which was not helping the fit of his jeans.

"Sam" He growled as he slid his hands under her shirt. "I'm not letting them in." and smiled at the way she shivered under his touch. "I'm busy." He nipped her neck then licked it, eliciting a needy mewl from her.

"O'Neill! I have a class to teach and do not have time for your shenanigans." Dr. Rush yelled through the door.

Sam stifled a giggle.

"Crap." Jack muttered. "Go in my apartment Sam. No reason for everyone in the complex to know what we were doing."

Sam gave his ass a final squeeze and walked away swaying her hips with intent.

Mark his words by the end of the day he was making love to that woman. Jack pressed on the base of his erection for a minute while everyone whined and complained on the other side of the door. Once he wasn't noticeably erect he unlocked the door and stomped over to his desk and flopped into his chair.

"Well, it certainly took you long enough." The thin older man said with an annoyed sniff. "Watch porn on your own time, O'Neill or I'll discuss it with your boss."

"Want me to call him for you Nick?" Jack asked him with a big grin as he picked up the landline.

"I do not have time for your nonsense." He told Jack as he took his receipt of payment and stalked out.

"Always a pleasure Dr, Rush! Who's next?" He swore he heard tinkling laughter come from his apartment.

* * *

It took Jack over an hour to process all the checks as he'd no sooner get one written and someone else showed up. He really needed to work out a system that they dropped the checks in the door slot and he slid their receipts under their doors later. Samuels had half the building trained because he was on a power trip and had a very bad habit of pretending he didn't receive their check if they just slid it in the mail slot. Because of this, he had to sit in his office the first Friday of every single month and collect hundreds of checks personally.

By the time he was done, Sam was long gone which he expected. She probably had some experiment running in her apartment. He didn't even pretend to understand half of what she worked on. He was fair at engineering, not that anyone had given him much of a chance to prove that. But she was going into theoretical astrophysics. That was a level or two above his pay grade.

Jack sighed in frustration. They had gone on a couple dates that had gone extremely well in his estimation. Sam seemed rather surprised that while Jack enjoyed a steak at O'Malley's, he was a big fan of dinner theater too. He'd taken her to Novus Room and enjoyed a bit of Puccini's _La Bohème_ with their ratatouille and Chablis. Sam had admitted later that no one had taken her to Novus Room in spite of hints to her former boyfriend Jonas, that he'd described it as 'stuffy' and taken her to a country-western bar on the edge of the Springs. Of course him showing up at her door in a suit and tie after telling her it would be dress attire had certainly scored several points in the classy boyfriend book he bet she kept.

He had been charmed to discover she talked to the half-dead plants he'd rescued from Hanson's condo and they had recovered under her dedicated care. She was his equal in chess which was a surprise as usually only Daniel could beat him consistently. He'd caught her doing crossword puzzles on the roof too. The cutest thing he'd noticed was her mom's sewing basket was clearly being used. Yarn seemed to appear next to it then disappear just as quickly and he was pretty sure the embroidery of the solar system hanging above her TV had been stitched by her hands. When he asked though she'd given him a blank look like she had no idea what he was talking about. She apparently used her Play-station to play Tetris and sing Karaoke as she didn't have any other games even though Liz swore she heard Sam yelling obscenities at Doom the other night. Could be on her tower, Jack decided.

His favorite thing about her though, was that she hummed after they went on dates. Even though all he'd done was thoroughly kiss her at her door. Of course that it just happened to be the Wormhole X-Treme theme song had charmed the crap out of him as he was a huge closet geek. A fact that basically, only Daniel knew the extent of. Well, technically Teal'c as well as binge watching DVDs of Teal's vast collection of science fiction was a regular thing on weeknights before he'd gotten involved with Sam. He was hoping when the new wore off, she'd join them as she seemed to be into that kind of thing too.

That led him to the thought that they could get a theater screen for the Gate room and some lightweight love seats they could push against the walls when not in use to binge some classics. He wondered how hard it would be to get some of the science geeks to build a server farm so they could store everyone's stuff to watch whenever they wanted.

Jack grabbed a couple beers and his guitar and headed for the roof. He set the instrument down against the wall of the elevator and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and hit #2 on the quick dial. "Carter," he purred into the phone when she picked up. "Meet me on the roof."

"I'm kind of in the middle of something Jack." She said distractedly.

"Wacha workin on Carter?"

"I don't think you would believe me if I told you." She said and muttered some numbers under her breath and something that sounded like drop cast drop.

"Well, bring it with you but come up to the roof. It's a beautiful day and I've gotten all the checks I'm going to get today." He was fairly certain she was knitting something as his grandma had done the same thing working on projects.

"I don't think-"

"Carter, I know you're knitting." He said with a chuckle. "I promise I won't tell. Now get your hot little ass up here and have a beer with me on the roof."

"How- You know what, never mind. I'll be there in a few minutes."

* * *

Sam appeared on the roof with a carpetbag stuffed full of a project and spotted him in the sitting area stretched out on the bench strumming his guitar, softly humming. The tune seemed familiar but she couldn't place it. He lowered his legs so she could sit next to him without pausing in playing and softly murmuring the lyrics under his breath just softly enough that she couldn't quite follow and he was humming part of it.

"That's pretty." She said with a shy smile. "Who's it by?"

"Local yokel." He flashed a grin. "At least for me."

Sam gave him a long look.

"Bob Dylan." He finally supplied, still strumming the gentle chords of the song, finally singing "_Many times I've often prayed, in the darkness of my night, in the brightness of my day_…" He smiled softly at her.

Sam sat and curled her legs up, resting her chin on her knees. Her bag sat forgotten as she watched him play.

He hummed a couple more of the chords before singing so softly she almost didn't hear him over the gentle breeze. "_She once was a true love of mine_."

Sam looked into Jacks eyes in quiet wonder at the soft hope she saw glowing there. Slowly the corners of her mouth tilted up until she was giving him a 100 watt smile.

His fingers stilled on the instrument and he grinned back.

"I've um, I've been told I'm kind of a train wreck." She told him casually.

"What, by that shrub you almost married? I met that guy. He quotes the bible while smelling like he jerks off all day with no tissues." Jack told her with a growl.

Sam snorted. "He didn't when I dated him but he did like controlling people."

"Yah, Cam mentioned that. It's why he got a reduction."

"How did you-?"

"I might have a couple buddies in the Air Force." He hedged.

"Jack? Why are you really running an apartment building? You have an engineering degree and a pilot license. What happened?"

"You snooped." He said without judgment, handing her a bottle of beer. He'd snooped around her place while there after all.

"Yah, well you did tell me to go in your apartment and both were framed and hanging in your office."

He shrugged with a 'fair enough' frown "There's also a sweet star chart on the other wall. Did you check it out?"

"I did see that, yes." She said with a chuckle.

"Good." He sipped his beer then set it down to pick up his guitar again. A Frankie Valli song she recognized drifted off his fingers and she blushed. Jack wasn't one for heart to heart conversations. He'd sidestepped her question after all, but his choice of songs was very telling.

Even so, Jack only hummed the lyrics, not trusting himself to sing without getting overly emotional but his eyes held her and gave away the depth of his feelings anyway.

Sam sat hugging her knees, her chin on one of them, smiling softly at him. "When did you learn to play?" she asked biting her lip.

"Grandfather taught me as a kid. There's not a lot to do in Minnesota in the winter once you've fished out the pond and the snow is too deep for sledding."

"Minnesota, huh?"

"Well, originally Chicago but my folks got divorced when I was really young. After that my grandparents raised me. Apparently, my grandpa put his foot down about the way they were using me to snipe at each other. Of course, I wasn't party to any of that. I was told I was going on vacation and just… never left." He said with a philosophical shrug. "You?"

"Well, my mom died when I was twelve in a car accident so after that it was just dad and Mark and I. Mark resented dad's job but he joined up anyway."

"What branch?"

"Air force." She said with a small grin.

"Air force, huh. What's he doing?"

"Some classified stuff over at Cheyenne Mountain. Says it's 'Deep space telemetry' but it sure sounds like hogwash to me."

"Your brother… is Mark Carter?"

"Yah, First Lieutenant."

"Oy…"

"What?"

"We've… met."

She looked at him perplexed and made a rolling motion with her hand.

"And that makes your dad General Jacob Carter."

"Well, yes." She said confused.

"Jake was the one that signed off on my discharge. I never met him at the time. He was just a guy to be mad at that I wasn't going to be a pilot."

"I'm sorry Jack."

"Not your fault. Not his either. I studied until I wrecked my eyes." He shrugged. "And now you know why I have an engineering degree and a pilot license."

"But not why you aren't using them Jack."

"Sure I am. I make furniture, don't I?"

"All right. You're technically using your engineering degree but you should be at an aeronautics company not…"

"Here Carter?"

"Well, yes."

"Sam, contrary to pop culture, everyone loves a vet until they need a job." He sighed. "They love a washout even less."

"I looked you up. You graduated top of your class." Sam said insistently.

"Are you done?"

"Jack…"

"Look, Sam, I appreciate your concern but I'm fine. I'm happy doing this. The hours are nice. I get to meet interesting people. I met this hot blonde who is just…" He burred his lips. "Well, you have a mirror." He said waving his hand vaguely at her which made her laugh.

"As long as you're ok with it." She said still a little confused.

"Relax, Carter, do some knitting." He said waving at her bag. "Drink your beer."

"Yes sir." She said chuckling but she did pick up her bag and figured out where she left off.

Jack went back to strumming his guitar, a thoughtful smile on his face.

She recognized the tune he was playing and smiled softly but held her tongue this time.

The soft strains of Elvis fell from the strings as he sang softly that he couldn't help falling in love with her.


End file.
